Minnesota Wild star Kirill Kaprizov will play again at some point this season. Just not in January, and probably not in February either.
Wild general manager Bill Guerin announced on Tuesday that Kaprizov is being shut down for the time being to have surgery and repair the lower body injury that has allowed the team’s top scorer to play in just three games since Christmas.
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“It is not a season-ending injury, but it will put him on the shelf for the next little while,” Guerin said, meeting with reporters at TRIA Rink before the team charter left for games in Toronto and Montreal this week.
Kaprizov returned from injury last week, playing in home losses to Utah and Calgary, and a road win in Chicago, but he did not practice on Tuesday. With the NHL taking a two-week break in February for the 4 Nations Face-Off, and Russian players not participating in that tournament, the Wild approach is to act now in hopes of getting Kaprizov back to 100% for a potential playoff run.
Wild coach John Hynes admitted that Kaprizov is frustrated with the latest setback, but he is determined to come back stronger.
“He hs handled it the best that he could. To his credit, he does everything that the doctors ask. He’s a workhorse. He does anything he can do to get himself ready to play, even though he’s not feeling great. He has certainly done that,” Hynes said. “But I think more is just a disappointment of not being able to play. I heard Billy earlier say that he’s such a team guy. I think it was really weighing on him that even though he told me, ‘Well, I’m only at 60%’ I said, ‘Well, you’re one of the best players on the ice at 60%.’ But to him, it’s the standard of helping the team at the level he wants to help the team, and he knows by getting surgery he can’t do that.”
With the Wild expected by some NHL-watchers to be buyers at the March 7 trade deadline, Guerin acknowledged that Kaprizov’s injury may change his team’s approach, depending on how much salary cap space is available.
“It could. It could. Thank God I have people that are much smarter than me around me, helping me with the salary cap stuff,” Guerin said. “So we’ll see how much space we have and where this leads us. Hey, look, we will do what we’re able to do with the cap space that we have.”
Kaprizov, 27, has a team-leading 52 points in the 37 games he has played this season.
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